James Stark, Sandman Slim, is working for a secret Christian agency that is intent on keeping the demons and magically infused citizens of LA in check. Meanwhile the entire world is falling apart, under a deluge of never ending rain LA is flooding and emptying out. God, the actual god, has had a breakdown and his split personalities have literally split him into various pieces, and are fighting each other. Stark trapped one part of the fractured deity down in hell, to get out of being Lucifer.

The Angra Om Ya, a powerful set of old gods, are attempting to come back while the chaos continues, and only Stark and his magic eight ball (a powerful weapon he doesn’t know how to use) can stop them.

There’s also a serial killer on the loose, cutting people up and putting them back together as vessels for the ancient gods to possess.

Can Stark work out the eight ball in time? Can he stop the serial killer? Will his girlfriend leave him? Will heaven collapse?

If you’re coming to a series six books in then I think you should be a bit lost, but Kadrey kindly provides enough explanation of the back story so that every makes sense.

The fact is, as a reader of the series, I remember all of it. I read a lot, I watch a lot, and most things pretty much trickle out of my sieve-like brain. But not Kadrey’s books. They stick in there, their weird scenes, characters and a hellish LA are imprinted on my memory. Sure, I don’t remember everything, but I remember most of it. These books are memorable, and that’s a lot more than I can say for most books.

Kadrey’s characters and writing has attitude. Stark would pick you up, slam your head against the wall, and kick you while you’re down.

The filmic quality of the books is finally realised with the new style covers for the paperbacks.

The Stark books are not likely to be anything like the books you’ve read before, and that’s more than a good thing, that’s a great thing. You don’t often find a writer who can quite tap into your nastiness and bring it out in book form, but Kadrey’s done just that.

The man is a genius, and while this isn’t the best of the Stark novels (the series does seem to be losing a bit of momentum), I’ll be sticking with it until the end, because it’s still the best urban fantasy ever.

This is the fifth book in the Sandman Slim series, and a bloody good series it is. James Stark is Sandman Slim, a man sent to hell by a former friend and forced to fight demons in an arena. He eventually fights his way out of hell and ends up in LA where his chronicled adventures begin with the first book in the series.

With book five we have more of the same, and this is a great jumping on point if you really can’t manage to get the first four books. The background is explained and all that’s gone before is briefly detailed here, giving those who have forgone the previous books (don’t so it, you’re missing out on the most remarkable series of books, start at the bloody beginning!) enough of the backstory that everything falls nicely into place.

In this book Stark is searching for the mysterious 8 Ball, a god-killing weapon that has fallen into the hands of the god-murdering angel and Stark’s personal nemesis Aelita. With his rag-tag bunch of friends, including an ex-communicated priest, a Jade (vampire-like creature), an immortal Frenchman and a robot, he heads deep into Kill City, a former shopping centre and now hellhole. Throw in God with a personality disorder, Satan being an angel again, crazy old world gods intent on eating the world, a messed up hell in the midst of a make-over, and a whole mess of other stuff and you have the fifth Sandman Slim novel.

Kadrey’s in-you-face-style and never-let up pace make for exciting and non-stop reading. This is a freight train of a book and you just won’t want to get off. The misadventures of our anti-hero are riveting, with Kadrey unafraid to put him and his crew in various dangers.

The new paperback format has a filmic slant, which is echoed in the film references made throughout the books, and the film-like quality of the series: think Quintin Tarantino doing a Dennis Wheatley adaptation on acid, or an early John Woo (The Killer) and early Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) collaborating on the most epic B-movie of all time, and you’ll get the idea.

The Sandman Slim books really have to be read to be believed, no matter how much hyperbole I use to describe them it won’t do the books justice. They are awesome in a world of mundaneity. You have not lived if you haven’t read a Kadrey novel.

I hate Richard Kadrey. I hate his books. I hate Sandman Slim, one of the greatest anti-heroes to ever be captured on the page.

Kadrey writes books I wish I’d written. He had created a world and characters that I can only dream of creating. He has plots that make me want to read the whole book in one sitting because I want to find out what happens so bad. But also I want to read slowly, to savour every sentence, and respect every line because there is such a wit and darkness in these pages.

This is the third book in the amazing Sandman Slim series, featuring Slim who is a magician returned from hell after turning monster fighter and demon killer. He lives in an LA underworld ruled by Sub Rosa (old magical) families and factions. And finds himself involved as a bodyguard to Lucifer, a private-detective and monster hunter. Slim is my hero. The dude rocks my world, and I wish, I so wish, that he was mine. We would have such great adventure together. But what am I saying? We do have such great adventures together, but that bugger Kadrey creates them! I don’t want to share, I want Slim all to myself.

The third book in the series see Slim having to head down to Hell as his nemesis is having success building an army of hellions and plans to head up to Heaven to destroy it, and then destroy the rest of the world. Of course, there’s excommunicated priests, demons and gods, magic, fighting, betrayal, lies, and all manner of excitement to get in the way of things moving along smoothly.

Slim narrates with a unique voice that entertains with a brisk pace and style that you will find hard to match. The closest comparable voice stylistically would be Joe Lansdale’s East Texas drawl. But Kadrey goes further, where most are afraid to go. He seems unafraid to deal with difficult and controversial issues such as religion and faith, all the while having a wicked sense of humour, and one hellish, fetid darkness that sucks the reader in.

Like the very best fantasists, Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman at the top of their game, Kadrey creates a magnificent world that drips reality, characters that ooze personality, and plots that truly capture the imagination.

The third book in the series continues on the success of the previous two books. You must read the Sandman Slim novels. You MUST read one of them.

I hate Richard Kadrey, I want to be Richard Kadrey. I love Sandman Slim. I look forward to most adventures together.

It’s not often that a book comes along that excites me. It’s not often that anything excites me. In fact, it’s a very rare occasion that anything wakes me from the tortured stupor that is my day to day life. I read almost constantly to escape the dull oblivion that is my pitiful existence.

And then a book like this comes along…

James Stark (demon fighter and part-Angel celebrity) is dragged into LA’s zombie while being Lucifer’s bodyguard. And that’s barely scraping the surface of this story, but I don’t want to ruin the surprises in store for you.

This is the second book in the Sandman Slim series, and if I haven’t read the first book then go read it. Go now. What are you waiting? Go, just go. No, don’t read any further, get it now! Right now I tell you!

You could probably pick this book up and struggle along to catch up, but don’t. The first book is a hell of a story (literally), and there’s far too much you’ll have missed out on if you start the series with book two. Although this is pretty much a stand-alone story, this is very much the second part of a series, and there’s a ton of background (and it’s really fun background!) that you’ll miss out on if you skip the first book. Do not skip the first book! DO NOT!

Stark is a serious piece of work, an alcoholic, chain-smoking, demon assassin, murderer, kick-ass detective; just the kind of dude Lucifer wants as a bodyguard. Our hellish anti-hero is a brilliantly humorous, angry young man, killing vampires and zombies with witty asides, and inventive techniques.

Kadrey has produced an LA dripping with monster filth, which works so well. This is a city bound-up with demons and hellions, drowning in Sub-Rosa (magical families), and is an antidote to those good folks in the Harry Potter novels. These magicians would cook up Harry and his pals for breakfast and then shit them out as zombies. This is hardcore witchcraft, terror and death.

This book is demented genius. Kadrey raised the bar for urban fantasy with Sandman Slim, and the expectations were high for the second book in the series. Not only does Kadrey gives us another exciting episode, but he continues to explore one of the most fascinating and engaging narrators/creatures in modern genre literature.

I saw Devil Said Bang in Forbidden Planet before Christmas and knew I had to read it. OCD sufferer that I am, I can’t start a series with book number four, so this one (Sandman Slim) went on my Christmas list. Fortunately Santa listened and I unwrapped this along with another twenty-odd books (Santa’s good!). I thought I’d start with this one because it’s fairly short, and I wanted to start working my way towards that fourth book in the series, the one I really wanted to read.

Fortunately the first in the series is a rock-hard, ultra-violent, action-fest!

Jimmy Stark was sent down to hell eleven years ago by his magic circle. Since then he’s been trying to survive as the play-toy of demons, and has managed to become a monster fighter and assassin. But when his ex-girlfriend is brutally murdered by the very same man who put him in hell, Stark escapes, killing one of Lucifer’s generals in the process. Now he’s in LA, looking for revenge on the magic circle that sentenced him to hell and their leader who killed the only woman he ever loved.

What follows is a cross between David Gunn’s Death’s Head (the attitude, the action, the raw brutality, and the protagonist from hell [this time literally]), and Tim Waggoner’s Nekopolis (a city [this time LA] riven with hellish creatures and magic), although it’s all under the surface here.

Stark is the perfect host (first person narrator), a revenge-driven psychopath, willing to kill himself and whoever gets in his way. The first person he encounters he cuts of their head. He doesn’t get any friendlier as the novel goes on, and it’s great! Hard-bitten, filled with venom and pithy comments, Stark is a true urban anti-hero with a bad attitude.

Kadrey has produced a real character in Stark, a unique individual you can’t help but remember, and may be not for all the right reasons. He’s fantastically caustic, and all the better for it in the urban sprawl of LA. An LA filled with angels, demons and Kissee, along with magicians, G-men from Homeland Security, murderers, skinheads and all manner of human-pus.

Sandman Slim is a unique and terribly entertaining mix, an urban fantasy that is vile and brutal and brilliant because of that. Stark is a hero that demands your attention, he has mine, and I’ll be back for the second in the series, and the third and fourth. I can’t wait!

Powell’s first collection The Last Reef (available as an ebook from Anarchy Books (www.anarchy-books.com) was exceptional. A book filled with intelligent SF, bristling with ideas and clever stories. I was looking forward to reading Powell’s first novel The Recollection, a clever SF story based on some of the stories in that first collection. It wasn’t as good as I was expecting. Most of the brilliant ideas in the book came from the stories in The Last Reef. I’d expected more.

I wasn’t looking forward to reading this one. It sounded a bit… well, stupid. Also, I’d just finished reading the excellent Sandman Slim, a book filled with character, with attitude, with energy. Not something I would have expected from the “quiet” fiction of Powell.

Boy was I wrong!

Powell seems to be having a great deal of fun with this book, and fortunately the reader is right there alongside him all the way.

Britain and France merged in the 1950s. Nuclear powered airships travel around the world. Britain refuses to give back Hong Kong and is on the brink of war with China. The King is recovering from an assassination attempt. Victoria returns to London to deal with the murder of her husband, only to find the policeman who escorted her to the flat dead on the foot of the stairs and his murderer looking up at her, then heading straight for him, his knife poised to kill her too…

A Macaque is battling against Nazi forces during the Second World War…

This is powerful, action-packed stuff. The tension starts to rise from very early on, and as the twisted tale of treason, conspiracy and murder is revealed the tension continues to rise. The characters are unique, their voices clearly individual, and the monkey adding a level of attitude and humour that really jumps off the page. The one-eyed, pistol carrying, cigar chomping fighter pilot macaque is brilliantly refreshing in his no nonsense attitude, and animalistic simplicity amongst the complex plotting and treachery.

The tension rises throughout the book, creating an edge of the seat expectation that could only be satisfied with a powerful climax, so how about fighting and explosions, and crashing and… (I don’t want to give away too much!) but Powel delivers by the bucketload.

Powell has hit his stride, and produced a steampunk SF novel that delivers. I don’t know if Powell is planning a sequel, but when you have a character this good, he deserves another book. I can’t think of a story that could possibly live up to this one, but I hope Powell can!